Let's get Lugaru + Overgrowth on Penguspy.com!

[Eagle0600]

Lugaru is original with good music, and is pretty cheap. It is released across all major platforms. Wolfire seems to treat us as friends and not wallets, and is very friendly.
DF is original, and can be funny, and is free. DF is being released across all major platforms. Tarn Adams treats his community as friends. DF is by no means easy to pick up, but has truly amazing variety.
CaveStory is original, with beautiful art. It's storyline isn't funny but is still very good. The music is also very good. CaveStory is also free, and easy to pick up, yet the variety is awesome.

This is just three examples, and I don't know most games out there. However, I believe this serves to illustrate my point. These are also only the points in their favour that are direct responses to the points you listed.

I am not trying to put down WoG, by any means. It is good and I would even say one-of-a-kind. But there are other games out there that match it for quality, but not for publicity.

[Wilbefast]

Lugaru is original with good music, and is pretty cheap. It is released across all major platforms. Wolfire seems to treat us as friends and not wallets, and is very friendly.
DF is original, and can be funny, and is free. DF is being released across all major platforms. Tarn Adams treats his community as friends. DF is by no means easy to pick up, but has truly amazing variety.
CaveStory is original, with beautiful art. It's storyline isn't funny but is still very good. The music is also very good. CaveStory is also free, and easy to pick up, yet the variety is awesome.

This is just three examples, and I don't know most games out there. However, I believe this serves to illustrate my point. These are also only the points in their favour that are direct responses to the points you listed.

I am not trying to put down WoG, by any means. It is good and I would even say one-of-a-kind. But there are other games out there that match it for quality, but not for publicity.

I played Cave Story for about an hour and then got stuck. Then I spent about an hour trying to figure out where I was supposed to go. So I can't really comment, even if I wasn't that impressed.

Lugaru's gameplay is great fun, but it has very slow production values when it comes to art and music, the difficulty curve likewise is far from perfect, the story is very generic and there's not a lot of variety. The only thing that keeps people coming back again and again is that the gameplay is really well polished.

Dwarf Fortress is the most obnoxiously user un-friendly game I've ever spent many long hours of my life trying to play, and is ugly as sin. The learning curve is utterly forgotten, the interface is confusing and the controls aren't powerful enough. Obviously I can tell that there's some serious depth there, but without reading some 10 000 pages of tutorials you won't even scratch the surface and will be left with something disgusting and unplayable.

I cannot stress enough my dislike for Dwarf Fortress - it is the perfect example of egotistical game-design.

[Sartan]

The learning curve is utterly forgotten, the interface is confusing and the controls aren't powerful enough. Obviously I can tell that there's some serious depth there, but without reading some 10 000 pages of tutorials you won't even scratch the surface and will be left with something disgusting and unplayable.

Speak for yourself, sugarplum pudding. Anyone with even the most basic Roguelike familiarity can jump in with ease. Don't blame the game just because you're not used to it.

[Wilbefast]

The learning curve is utterly forgotten, the interface is confusing and the controls aren't powerful enough. Obviously I can tell that there's some serious depth there, but without reading some 10 000 pages of tutorials you won't even scratch the surface and will be left with something disgusting and unplayable.

Speak for yourself, sugarplum pudding. Anyone with even the most basic Roguelike familiarity can jump in with ease. Don't blame the game just because you're not used to it.

And anyone with even the most basic Roguelike familiarity is geriatric (sugarplum? pudding?) - there were many interesting inventions between Rogue and 2009, most notably the mouse

Seriously though, I have nothing against retro graphics and control schemes, it's just that a game's complexity should not be greater than it's ability to clearly convey information. There's a reason why Google Earth doesn't use a Roguelike display and navigational controls.

[Armored Wolf]

Lugaru is original with good music...

Actually the music isn't all that great.

[TheBigCheese]

The learning curve is utterly forgotten, the interface is confusing and the controls aren't powerful enough. Obviously I can tell that there's some serious depth there, but without reading some 10 000 pages of tutorials you won't even scratch the surface and will be left with something disgusting and unplayable.

I disagree. I've had absolutely no experience with rogue-likes or any similar control setup at all, and picked it up in about a day or two. You really only have to understand the key commands like 'd', 'p', and 'b'. To get started, and when you've memorized key combinations to specific actions, it's much faster than a standard gui, and without all of the wasted space.

Though I always keep Dwarf Wiki up in the background in case I need it.

[Wilbefast]

I wouldn't be so hard on the game if I hadn't tried so hard to get into it, and I really did try to get into Dwarf fortress. It's not like I played it for 5 minutes and then gave up, I've actually devoted hours of my life to trying to work out this game, and I thoroughly regret it. Maybe you had a different experience - I know that a lot of people have got a lot out of the game, I know it's had a lot of praise from critics: it's why I put so much effort into it in the first place. But although I'm not computer or video-game illiterate by any standards and I found it utterly unplayable.
I've really got nothing more to say on the subject.